Is trying to balance your D&D games a lost cause?
>>96516493Entirely depends on what you mean by balance.
Do you fags really need to make a pointless thread every single time some no name jackoff posts a D&D theory video on jewtube?
>>96516493Yes. Trying to "balance" any RPG is a lost cause.For D&D and adjacent systems I just use the method running AD&D taught me:>First combat encounter>Monsters in encounter have roughly the same amount of combined HD as player party has levels>For every encounter after, adjust more or less combined HD based on party competency and special abilities of monstersThere is no equation to do this for you. You just have to go by feel and hopefully it's challenging enough that your players don't get so complacent that nothing poses a threat or worse, rely on some gimmick to "just win"
>>96516517This. If by "Balance" you mean "Make every single option a boring reskin of another in an attempt to homogenize the game so no option is stronger than the others at anything" then no.If you mean "Every option is good at what it does and there is no bad playstyle, and encounters are able to be fair, if sometimes challenging or difficult" then yes. The ideal "balance" for a ttrpg is to have a party that is all able to fill a very specific niche that forces them to rely on the rest of the party in the COOPERATIVE GAME to succeed TOGETHER.
>>96516493Trying to "fix" DnDogshit is like trying to "fix" a decapitation wound with a bandaid. Just play a better fucking game.
>>96517057>Just play a better fucking game.Like what?
>>96517077My homebrewn game.
>>96517077If you seriously have to ask this, just stick to D&D. It's where you belong. The containment sink works.
>>96517077Trophy Gold, Most Trusted Advisors, Mutants & Masterminds, Unknown Armies, Mage: The Awakening, ICON.
>>96517077For him, Tiddlywinks
>>96517077Ah yes, another thread where dozens of things will be suggested and you'll just cover your ears and bleet out uninformed arguments about all of them. No thanks. This question has been answered hundreds of times already, put in the damn leg work yourself.
>>96517057>t. retarded faggot who never played any tabletop game>>96517077If you think any of this durr durr D&D is bad derp morons play anything other than penises think again.
>>96517077Games not made by WotC or Piazo are a good place to start. I personally like Ryuutama. Japan has a number of good TTRPGS if you don't mind more weeby stuff and are willing to put in the effort to find translated versions.
>>96517175>RyuutamaI keep hearing about this system here. Definitely going to bump it up my list of things to try.
>>96516493Balance is an illusion of fairness the referee creates by selecting monsters and placing treasure commensurate to the player character's levels for most encounters in a dungeon.>>96517154You fucksticks have never once recommended a D&D replacement game that is both a game that does dungeon crawling well and isn't just a reskin of one edition of D&D.
>>96517419Pathfinder 2E alone outclasses every edition of D&D by simply doing the same thing but with all the worthless branding chaff cut out.
>>96517419You almost give them too much of a benefit of doubt. These faggots just keep playing the same records on repeat since they're not occupied with playing games.I just filter their stock phrases at this point. That one guy just triggered three of my filters.
>>96517429>Actual mechanic doesn't matter! Only LE BRAND!You're no better than WOTC cocksuckers. You're just sucking a different, smaller cock.
>>96517419There are literally suggestions in this thread already. You don't want a solution though. You want to keep crawling back to D&D like an abused housewife.
>>96516533"Innovative tactics are warranted."
>>96516493The proper balance is "Everyone's skillset is necessary to complete the scenario". Your party is a world-splitting wizard, the swordsman who slew the Jormungandr, a thief that can steal things that aren't even tangible, and a Lv1 commoner who speaks Abyssal for some reason? Well if the ancient seal of Demon King *babbles lips* is at the core of the mountain and the key is an abstract concept and you need to recite a poem written by an obyrith in reverse, well that's balanced because everyone has their role and everyone is needed.
>>96516493Balance implies that players cannot go outside of the bounds of the rules set in place. Which if it isn’t obvious is not the case with literally any RPG. Like you can balance something off a tightly woven combat system, but it doesn’t mean jack or shit if I simply set the room on fire and bar the door so that the combatants inside die of smoke inhalation.
>>96517077pathfinder.hasbro and anything associated with them is slop. Expect it to only get worse from the point moving forward. They’ve recently admitted to using AI art.
>>96517930>you can’t balance against battlefield tactics known since 2000 bchuh
>>96516493The goal should be to make sure each character is useful without being wildly outclassed. Nobody wants to sit around and have their character never able to meaningfully contribute.That doesn't mean perfect balance. You can sometimes get close enough just by tossing enough magic items tailored for the weaker characters.
>>96516979>"Make every single option a boring reskin of another in an attempt to homogenize the game so no option is stronger than the others at anything"No game actually does this.This inevitably turns in to apologia for 3.5 D&D or Shadowrun being shit at testing their available options for use, but having a lot of them.
>>96517147No one plays any of these though
>>96517951Let’s be for real about this, actual creativity and out of the box thinking does not work in a balance combat orientated mindset. Game design only covers so much, otherwise it become an unwieldy bloated mess that takes ages to actually adjudicate rules for. I could make a Pathfinder joke here but The Campaign For North Africa is more fitting in the comparison.
>>96517991>I don’t want to play these games because learning new things is hardFixed that for you!
>>96518001you could do it with the “6 second rule” or whatever to approximate it on the fly. Also, combat rules in these games are (mostly) based on real life tactics. So a lot of them fall into place quite well if you utilize them. I’ve played WWII wargames where handbook tactics work reasonably well on the tabletop because they were designed to feel like real combat and probably used similar books as reference. Similarly, those books accounted for things like fire attacks and other real combat threats so you dont really have to “balance” them. Real life experiences already balanced them for the tabletop.That said, I was mostly shitposting with that comment.
>>96517936pathfinder is literally dnd slop
>>96518072He wants to play dnd at least let him play dnd that isnt complete trash
>>96517803There are no suggestions that do dungeons and dragons style games without just being a reskin of dungeons and dragons. I've played them, I know this first fucking hand.
>>96517762NTA, but the fact that you don't understand how many sacred cows in D&D make it a worse game means you really have no practical knowledge to speak with.>>96518001Balance ultimately comes down to numbers. The 'out of the box' thinking you are talking about means you are depending on the GM to fuck up the system with out of order adjudications.
>>96517895This.>>96517930>but it doesn’t mean jack or shit if I simply set the room on fire and bar the door so that the combatants inside die of smoke inhalation.Okay, roll to not be noticed and then if you succeed you can roll to lift the heavy bar. Oops, you crit failed your stealth check, you've been noticed, roll initiative you fuckass.
>>96518088This is nonsense, considering that D&D comprises of almost 5 different rulesets that have a thin mechanical (or thematic) thread between them all.The implication that any game that isn't WILDLY different from D&D, ie has no numbers or dice, is the same as D&D is a common shitpost tactic designed to extend these threads.
>>96518062Perfectly understandable, I tend to fall on the philosophy of: People will be as prepared as they can be in a fight, but if you have a plan they would have never seen coming it’s going to probably work. Like yeah, I do not expect that the invading army was expecting you to blow the foundations several buildings to crush the spearhead invading army. You fucking got me.Haven’t played a lot of wargames myself, but trying to get a group together to actually get into that side of the hobby. Konflikt 47 and Conquest look dope as fuck.
>>96517979I'm aware, but every time I mention balancing a TTRPG the immediate response is "NUH UH BALANCE IS BORING EVERYTHING IS THE SAME" by 3.PF1E fags. If I didn't bring it up, some faglord would say something about it.As I said, good balance is ensuring that there are no bad options, not that every character can do everything well, just that each character can do its thing well and that when a player chooses how to make their character it's a choice, not just "oh X playstyle is shit I'm going to never play that or even consider it".
>>96518104I'm aware that D&D is full of useless sacred cows (i.e. Alignment), but PF2e is still a bad system. Just because it's not D&D doesn't make it good. In fact, it has some of its own sacred cows (multiple AC types, AC in general, it had alignment until Paizo got bullied into removing it with the revised PHB, classes being entirely dependent on feats for actual features instead of having features baked in, though PF2E is better about this than PF1e, if only slightly).PF2e has D&D DNA in it. Pretending it's any better just because it's not WOTC making it is retarded. Games should be judged solely on their content and mechanics.
>>96518107Ah yes, good to know that actual player agency is secondary to your pre written plot. I do hope your novel works out great for you.
>>96518125If you need a group go to a place that hosts warhammer. You will find a group of people to play with and they can typically be convinced to play other systems. A few of them are only playing 40k or sigmar because they don’t have other options.
>>96518110The only non-D&Ds recommended in this thread are>Homebrews>Horror-based storygames without meaningful systems for monster and treasure-based dungeon crawls>Superheroes>Literally just D&D with a new nameAs for your other point, recognizing the unchanging through line of D&D and expecting a replacement for it to do it well is not a shitpost anything. It's wanting you to know why people like D&D even after trying other games.
>>96518104I mean it’s not as if the scenario I proposed is outside of the realm of belief. Like sure numbers is numbers, if I get shot I expect it’s gonna probably do the same kind of damage to the other guy. I’m simply saying that rules aren’t gonna cover every scenario, because they can’t.
>>96518145>Games should be judged solely on their content and mechanics.Pathfinder is a bloated nightmare mess of a game cares more about super kewl builds than it does being an actual game worth playing.D&D heritage or not, it's not a good game and is bad for all teh same reasons why D&D has been bad since 1999.
>>96518166Cyberpunk RedWarhammer 40K (Literally any of the RPGs outside of Wrath and Glory)CainThere’s plenty of options for games, the only reason that no one goes outside of the sphere of DnD is because of laziness. Like DnD isn’t gonna be replaced in the zeitgeist because it’s got marketing, but that doesn’t mean it has to be the thing your group plays. You just have to be willing to put the effort into branching out of your comfort zone. Like I have watched people want to play a Star Wars game and rewrite DnD rather than just playing the other Star Wars RPGs that exist.
>>96518208All three suck worse than D&D and are massive grifts, ntu
>>96518208>literally anything outside of wrath and glorycant be understated. w&g is abysmal dogshit.t. played w&g
>>96518163Being an American in Germany it’s a been bit hard to find break into the game scene near where I live. Thankfully I’ve started getting to know some expats who’re interested in giving wargaming a try so we’ll see where that goes.
>>96518215Cool man, have fun complaining about DnD for the rest of your life. I hope your pages of homebrew rules bring you great joy.
>>96518237there has to be some happy medium between D&D and garbage tho
>>96518217Like I get that narrativist games are fun but the overlap of people who are interested in playing 40K RPGs and the people who are interested in playing narrativist games are like 2 separate circles.
>>96518243I’m gonna be real with you for a second, you really need to find a better way to troll man because it’s kind of sad.On the other hand if it’s genuine, I’m sorry to say that no matter how much you work the shaft Hasbro and Paizo aren’t gonna tell you they love you.
>>96518255It aint even good as a narrative game.>Channel divination power for 12 hourslike how the fuck am I supposed to roleplay when the psionic tweaker is spazzing on the floor for literally half a day?
>>96518208None of those are attritional resource management dungeon crawlers. Try again, gamelet.
>>96516493In the case of 40k, balancing is definitely a scam and just an excuse to sell you new books, new codex's every few years and influence people into a cycle of buying new models after they hit previously good units with the nerf stick
>>96518228Well good luck to you on your endeavors. Being a rpg player is a blessing in wargaming. People love narrative games and they’re a rare sight so it’s nice to get some of those. I ran a couple myself and from experience its a lot easier to set up than pen and paper rpgs.
>>96518275maybe actually try next time shit for brains.
>>96518128I agree with you, and we both understand the usual suspects will talk shit.
>>96518289Why would I pigeonhole myself to such a narrow scope of games? Christ that’s like saying that the only worthwhile food is oatmeal or some shit.
>>96518320How’s middle school treating you champ? Has Brad been beating the shit out of you for being a virgin again?
>>96518305Honestly I remember getting into the idea of playing wargames because of stuff like 5 Parsecs From Home and Rangers of Shadowdeep, and I kind of wanted to share that with some friends if I could.
